


Lost and Found

by TWDObsessive



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Summer Camp, Anal Sex, Anger, Angst and Humor, Child Abuse, Coming of Age, Developing Relationship, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Falling In Love, First Kiss, First Time, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Smut, Forgiveness, Friends to Lovers, Friendship/Love, Growing Up Together, Hand Jobs, Innocence, Kissing, M/M, Mutual Pining, POV First Person, POV Rick Grimes, Part 2- With the boys reunited as grown-ups will include the following tags:, Reunion Sex, Rick and Daryl ages 8-13, Underage Kissing, Underage sexual activity, Understanding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-25
Updated: 2016-10-31
Packaged: 2018-08-27 01:02:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 13,407
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8381797
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TWDObsessive/pseuds/TWDObsessive
Summary: I remember that first day at summer camp like it was yesterday.  It was a profound moment in my life even though I was a mere eight years old.  It was where I met Daryl in the woods.  My parents were concerned that entire school year afterwards, thinking I had an unhealthy imaginary friend.  Took me to shrinks and everything.  
  But just ‘cause the camp counselors said there was no Daryl that didn't mean there was no Daryl.  He was there.  He watched us from the woods all day alone until a baseball went into the brush and I went after it and found him.  He became my best friend.  He became everything.





	1. Lost

**Author's Note:**

> Hot off the presses... forget all the darkness and gore of the Season 7 premiere! Let's have some youthful, innocent Rick and Daryl at Summer Camp instead! This is the first chapter of a two-parter. Part two is still being written and will be posted sometime next week.
> 
> Beta'd by the one and only Stylepoints! (Poor thing barely got even a day off since the last fic she beta'd for me!) LOL!

_I remember that first day at summer camp like it was yesterday. It was a profound moment in my life even though I was a mere eight years old. It was where I met Daryl in the woods. My parents were concerned that entire school year afterwards, thinking I had an unhealthy imaginary friend. Took me to shrinks and everything._

_But just ‘cause the camp counselors said there was no Daryl that didn't mean there was no Daryl. He was there. He watched us from the woods all day alone until a baseball went into the brush and I went after it and found him. He became my best friend. He became everything._

“Hi,” I said. “Why aren't ya out there playin’?” I could tell he was kinda shy already the way he tried to hide behind his too long hair. Surprised his Momma didn't make him get a haircut!

“Ain't here for stupid camp,” he answered. “I live nearby. Ain't no law says I can't be here.”

“You can play on my team. We need another outfielder,” I suggested as I picked up the ball. It had to be boring to just sit and watch. He must like to play. His clothes were all dirty and old like maybe he slid into base plenty of times already. I'd have gotten in trouble if I came home looking like that.

“Them grown-ups don't let strangers into the actual camp,” he said, looking a little sad that he couldn't come play.

“My name’s Rick. What's yours?”

“Daryl,” he answered as he bit at a thumbnail.

“Well, now you're not a stranger!” I said and waved for him to follow me back onto the field.

“Don't really work like that,” Daryl said. “You gotta have money to go to camp.”

“Tell your parents you wanna come play,” I said. Seemed easy enough of a problem to figure out, I thought.

He narrowed his eyes at me. “Not everyone's parents got all that money, asshole.”

My eyes grew wide. “You said asshole,” I whispered.

“I can say what I want. My Pa don't even care.”

“Wow.” I would be in so much trouble if I said that. I looked at the ball then back to the field where they had continued the game with a new ball. “What do you do then if you can't come to camp and play. Do you have video games at home?”

“Nah, I don't like video games. They're stupid.”

I wondered if he even had them. I was old enough to know video games cost money too. “So what do you do?”

He shrugged. “I like to fish.”

I brightened up at that. “We go fishin’ here at camp. Haven't caught nothin’ though.”

“That's cause you guys use stupid lures. They don't work. Gotta use real worms.”

“How do ya get real worms?” I wanted to try that kind of fishing so I could catch something.

“You just dig in the dirt for ‘em.”

I looked down at my feet then knelt and started digging. “Let's find some and go fishin’!”

“Don't you gotta go play baseball with all them rich kids?”

“Nah. They get boring sometimes.”

We found our worms and double dog dared each other to eat one. It was disgusting. Daryl did it first and I wanted to do it if he did. He was cool and knew about all kinds of stuff like animals and what kinds of plants and trees there were and he knew how to fish and how to swim in the lake. My mom sent a note that I can't go in the water ‘cause I don't know how to swim but Daryl said it was real easy and he'd teach me. 

That first day we fished together with homemade poles that Daryl had and I caught my very first fish ever! Daryl caught three. He took them all home to cook ‘cause he knows how and he's allowed to use the stove. 

I didn't get back to the cabins til almost dark and got in trouble for wandering off. I decided not to tell them grown-ups about Daryl ‘cause they might chase him off ‘cause he don't got no money. And I wanted to play with him again! He was gonna teach me to swim the next day!

I was pretty good at sneaking away. There's a lot of kids at camp and they’re all loud and outgoing and the counselors won't notice just one kid going on a walk by himself. I always been kinda quiet compared to most of those other kids. 

I met up with Daryl in the same spot the next morning and we walked to a lake he knew about. I was a little scared about looking chicken in front of him ‘cause I really didn't know how to swim. But something about Daryl was that he never made you feel bad. He was always on your side and wanted you to do good instead of wanting to be better than you were. 

Daryl wasn't scared of nothing. We saw a snake on the way to the lake and I jumped about ten feet. He tried to catch it to show me it wouldn't hurt. He was the bravest kid I ever met. I liked hanging out with someone that brave, thought maybe it would rub off some on me.

When we got to the lake we went in with just our boxers. In the water Daryl wasn't like other kids. He didn't razz me or make fun cause I was nervous. He just swam a bit to show me how and then when I still struggled, he held me up with my belly on his arms while I tried to figure out the kicking. We splashed around all day and by the time we were hungry for lunch, I could back float and doggie paddle!

When we got out and laid on the soft grass to dry off, that's when I saw Daryl's back. 

“What happened? Did you fall out of a tree?” I asked. 

“Nah. It's just marks.”

“Marks from what?”

“When I get in trouble,” he said softly.

“Did your Momma and Daddy do that? What did you do so bad?”

Daryl shrugged. “Just my Pa. My Momma’s gone. I guess I just get in the way sometimes. I just try to stay away. Like now, bein’ here ‘stead of bein’ home.”

“What made those marks?” I asked, wide-eyed at the terrible thought of someone hurting my friend.

“His belt. Or sometime his hands. Or whatever he can grab nearby. I'm fast though,” Daryl bragged. “Sometimes I can get away!”

“I wish you could always get away,” I said sadly. I wasn't happy about anyone hurting or being mean to my best friend. That's when I thought of it. Shane was my best friend but his folks were divorced and he had to spend summers in Maryland. So I was in the market for someone new.

“Hey, you wanna be my best friend?”

“Don't you got one already?” he asked.

“I got one during school but he goes to his dad's far away in the summer. Do you got one?”

“No.” He said he didn't have no friends ‘cause all the kids he knew were assholes. So he automatically liked me ‘cause I was nice. 

“Okay. That's our plan then. We’ll be best friends. What should we play tomorrow?” I was already excited to find new adventures with Daryl. Out in the woods together we could do anything.

“My brother has a deer stand nearby. It's fun like a fort. We can hang out there and look through binoculars and try to see some of the deer and stuff.”

“Okay! That sounds awesome!” 

Most of the summer we played by ourselves in the woods or the lake or a playground Daryl took me to at a nearby park. I just had to make sure I got back before dark and the camp counselors never noticed. 

On my last day I was sad to leave. But I promised Daryl I'd be back the next summer and I would come looking for him as soon as I got there.

When I got home that year I’d started using words like “ain’t” and “asshole” and my parents were mad about the bad habits I picked up. Like digging for worms in the dirt. And talking about my best friend Daryl. They called the camp to complain about him. Said he was a bad influence. But the camp said there wasn't no kids there named Daryl. And that's when my folks got convinced it was an imaginary friend and on came the shrinks. 

After a while I figured out the game. I pretended that Daryl was imaginary and stopped talking about him. But the next summer after the first night at camp, I wandered out to the woods and there was Daryl. 

“I know how to make my own campfire to cook our fish!” He said proudly. He had two of those handmade rods in his hand. “Come on, let's get some! I'll show you!”

And it was like we hadn't been apart at all. We fell right back into place where we left off. That year I started sneaking out at night so we could have s'mores by the campfire. We raced across the lake because I had gotten much better at swimming. Daryl still always won though. But instead of bragging like Shane would have, he'd tell me I’d get it next time and how much faster I am each time. I liked that about Daryl.

I brought my army guys with me a few times and we play with them in the dirt making all kinds of forts for them out of rocks and leaves and tree bark. That year when summer camp was over I was even sadder. I wished Daryl could be my full-time best friend because he was way more fun than Shane.

When I was ten, during my third summer at camp, Daryl had gotten a hold of a tent and he camped out in the woods nearby most nights. We had campfires and ghost stories and he told me that his brother promised to take him hunting in the fall and if he learned how he'd teach me. 

We talked about more serious stuff that year because we were ten and not kids anymore. One night Daryl had showed up with bad bruises around one wrist and he was walking with a bit of a limp.

“Did you get in trouble?” I asked with a frown. I took hold of his arm so I could get a better look. I could see the outlines of fingerprints in the purple and blue skin. 

“Yeah. It's okay.” He was so strong he didn't even act like it hurt him. I got stung by a bee one time earlier that year and I cried like a baby even though I was ten.

“I think we should tell the police.” I said that night by the fire.

“Tell ‘em what?”

“That your dad is real mean. You aren't s’posed to beat your kids. It's against the law.”

Daryl shrugged. “Can't. If he gets in trouble then I’ll _really_ get in trouble. He broke Merle’s whole leg one time and if he did that to me I wouldn't be able to come out and play with you. Merle couldn't do nothin’ for months.”

“But it ain't right!” I said, showing some of my anger.

He shrugged again. “It's okay. Merle is gonna move out soon and I'm gonna stay with him then so my Pa can't get me no more. I bet I'll be all moved by next summer.”

“Not far though, right? You'll be here?”

“Yah. I'll make sure. Don't worry.”

The next summer Daryl was there waiting on me. We were eleven.

“Do you live with Merle yet?” It was my very first question. I knew he wasn't though because he was sporting the yellows and greens of a fading black eye.

“Nah. He ain't settled yet. Maybe sometime. He taught me how to play poker though. I can show yah.”

That summer we swam, fished, played cards and I stayed over in his tent a few nights. We’d stay up all night talking about all kinds of things. We talked about how we were both going to grow up and be cops. We talked about comic books that we both read. We talked a lot about Batman and Superman and Ironman and who was better. We talked about hunting trips that Merle took Daryl on. And movies I went to go see over the school year with Shane. 

One night I decided to finally ask Daryl about his Momma. I knew she was dead, but I was curious about it. I never knew anyone who died. He tried to be brave when he answered my questions but his voice was different than normal. Kinda deflated like a balloon that was running out of helium.

“How old were you?” I asked.

“Five. I only remember her a little bit,” he answered as he picked at some torn stitches on the wall of the tent. He wouldn’t look at me when he talked like he was afraid to see my eyes.

“How did it happen? Was it scary?”

He nodded wordless at first and then answered as he fumbled with the worn sole of one of his sneakers. “There was a fire at my old house and Merle came in to save me and then we tried to drag out my Ma but she was already on fire and Merle said she was already dead so then we ran into the woods and hid till the fireman put the fire out.” He paused a moment before he finished. “She was nice. I wish she didn’t get killed.”

I couldn’t imagine how little and scared a five-year-old Daryl would be. I felt like I wanted to cry but if he wasn’t crying then it would be really stupid for me to cry.

“How did the fire start?”

Daryl shrugged. “Somethin’ just burned up I guess. Merle thinks Pa done it on purpose cause he was mad. So it’s really not bad if I get hit as long as I don’t get killed. Did you bring your army guys again this year? Maybe we can play with them tomorrow.”

I was such a baby. I knew he wanted to change the subject. It was bad enough he lived through all that bad stuff but I just made him talk about it and now it was clear he was sad and that made me sad and well… I already told you what a crybaby I can be. I started crying right there in the tent and Daryl had to put an arm around my shoulder. “You don’t gotta be sad, Rick. Your Momma ain’t gonna die like that. You got good parents. It’ll be okay.”

He didn’t even realize I was crying for him and that made me sob worse and the fact that he didn’t make fun of me for it made me cry even more. I loved Daryl so much. I wished he was my brother and could come home with me and live at my house. I wished his Pa would leave him alone. I wished I was already a police officer so I could bang down the door of his house and put his Pa in handcuffs and take him to the death penalty forever.

He didn’t say nothing else about my crying. Just sat with his hand around my shoulder ‘cause he was my best friend. I never asked about his Momma no more and he didn’t ever talk about her again.

The summer I was twelve was my most scary summer ever. I had been begging Daryl to show me where he lived ‘cause I always wanted to know. Finally we went and watched his house, it was actually a trailer, from a safe spot in some bushes. I wanted to see his Pa. I wanted to remember him so when I grew up to be the police I could go arrest him. I didn’t tell Daryl that was why though. 

I watched him come home in an old pick-up. He was big and tall and wore dirty jeans and a stained t-shirt. He wobbled when he walked like he was dizzy.

“Is he sick? Why’s he walk like that?” I asked.

“He’s been drinkin’,” Daryl answered quietly. 

“You ever think about like…” I couldn’t finish my sentence because it was so bad. I was afraid God would punish me right where I stood for just thinking it.

“‘Bout what?” he asked as he started biting on a thumb nail.

I shrugged. “Like puttin’ poison in his beer so he gets killed or somethin’?”

Daryl smiled at me. “Jesus. Think you hate him more than I do, Rick,” Daryl said.

I didn’t say nothing to that. Finally Daryl spoke again. “I have. But I’m scared of what would happen to me then. Don’t know where I’d go and don’t wanna go in jail like Merle.”

“Merle’s in jail!?” I shrieked and Daryl put a hand over my mouth and shushed me. 

“He started doing drugs and stuff and he’s been in and out a few times. So…. that’s why he ain’t been able to let me come stay with him. He feels bad ‘bout it though. But he said prison is real bad and told me I better not ever do nothin’ bad like him.”

“Shit,” I said. When Daryl and I would be swimming or running through the woods playing hide and seek or sitting at a campfire telling stories, he was always smiling and having fun. But his life was so sad. I couldn’t even imagine being so scared of my dad. Or being hit. Or having no friends at all at school. Or my Momma being dead. Or living in that trailer. There was no yard and you could tell it must be real small and probably not very clean.

A couple days later Daryl wasn’t in the woods waiting on me. And I knew enough by then to know that something had to be wrong. So I went through the woods and hid in the bushes and watched his house. I had to check on him. Had to go in because what if he was hurt or bleeding all over the place and gonna die? After about an hour his Pa finally stumbled out of the house, got in his truck and drove away and I knew it was my chance. 

I ran across the street and banged on the front door. He opened it after a minute or so and I was relieved until I saw all the blood on his shirt. 

“You can’t come in here, man. You’ll get hurt. I’ll be out later okay?” Daryl said, much calmer than I was even though he was the one bleeding. 

“You’re really hurt bad,” I said, as I pushed the door hard and walked in. 

He relented his hold on the door and put his hand back over his bloody shoulder. 

“It’s okay. Just some glass. I was gonna come out as soon as I could.”

“What happened?”

“It was a beer bottle. He’s goin’ out to the bar. I don’t know when he’ll be back.”

“Why did he do it?”

“He was out of beer. Thought I drank it,” Daryl said, then quietly added, “I didn’t.”

 

I helped him pull his shirt off and saw two bad cuts and a bunch of smaller ones. One still had a shard of glass in it. “Let me help you. You got any bandages or anythin’?”

Daryl walked me to the bathroom and opened up the medicine cabinet. I looked around the house as we made our way through it. It was so messy. There were empty beer bottles on the floor. Dirty dishes in the sink. My mom would have had a heart attack.

I was still holding his shirt and I plucked out the shard of glass while he watched. “Thanks,” he said and fished for some bandages. I pressed his shirt against the wounds to try to stop the bleeding. I wished I could ask my parents if Daryl could stay with us. But I’d tried to bring Daryl up again the previous summer and had another couple weeks of shrinks. I wished Daryl would call the police. It wasn’t right. But I understood why he was scared of the unknown. I wrapped up his shoulder with gauze and it still bled through, but it seemed to be slowing and clotting. 

“Okay. That’s good. Let’s go!” Daryl said after I put down the gauze and tape. 

“Daryl. I don’t think it’s a good idea to be running around with them cuts. Maybe we can just stay h-”

“You can’t stay here, Rick. My Pa won’t like it. Don’t want you to get hurt.” He moved his arm when he talked and the bleeding started again. 

“What if you need stitches?” I asked, my voice sounding much younger than I was. 

“Merle is out of jail right now. He’s stitched me up before. I already called him and he’ll be over tonight after work. I’ll just stay home today. You should go. I’ll meet you tomorrow. I’ll be stitched up and fine, okay? Don’t worry, Rick. I’m used to it.”

That was the saddest part of all. That he was used to it. I left. But I didn’t go back to camp. I sat at our tent and cried for the rest of the afternoon.

The next day, we decided not to fish or swim cause Daryl was still getting better. He let me see his stitches. They looked pretty rough, but for just his brother doing it, I was impressed. I would like to meet Merle one day maybe, even if he was in jail and stuff. We sat in our little camp and I had brought snacks that my parents had sent from home. We ate Oatmeal Creme Pies and played cards and didn’t talk about Daryl’s Pa or anything like that. We talked about stories that Merle’s told him. And about a few of our favorite TV shows we watch and about how we both hated math class and liked science. And we talked about all the bad guys we were gonna get when we got to be police. 

The next summer, the year I turned thirteen would be my last at summer camp but I didn’t know that until later. During that school year Shane had gotten his first girlfriend. He talked about her all the time and hung out with her more than he hung out with me. He said he got to second base already and I wasn’t really sure what that was but I thought it was something without clothes. I was disappointed because Shane wasn’t interested in hanging out no more. It made me miss Daryl more than usual that winter and when I got to summer camp I barely put my bags down before I ran out to our spot in the woods. 

I was so glad to see Daryl sitting there with his tent already pitched for the summer and the fire pit just waiting to be lit. He wouldn’t leave me for no girls like Shane. I knew that for a fact. That day we went swimming and it was the first time I won on the race across the lake. When we got out, Daryl was hooting and hollering with excitement for me. He hugged me and it made my body feel weird to have his bare chest against my own. I wondered if that was what Shane and his girlfriend did. If it was… I decided right then that I wanted to do it with Daryl. 

We laid on the bank to dry off a bit under the sun and looked up, playing our cloud game. He’d see a dragon and I’d see a turtle and we’d tell a story about a dragon and a turtle. Stupid stuff. But it made us both laugh. And I really liked Daryl to laugh and be happy with me, cause it was always in the back of my head that he had a lot of sad things in his life. 

This time when Daryl looked up, he said he saw a girl in the clouds. 

“Shane got a girlfriend this year,” I said.

“He did?! How?”

I shrugged. “I dunno.”

“Are you going to get one?” he asked, his voice soft like maybe he really didn’t want the answer to the question he was asking. 

“Nah. I don’t like any,” I answered firmly.

“I don’t like any neither,” he said, his eyes still on the fluffy white clouds above us.

“I don’t even really want to be Shane’s friend anymore. He got boring.”

“I won’t get boring,” Daryl said looking over at me.

I smiled at him. Heck, I knew that. “Shane said he got to second base with that girl. You know what second base is?”

“Merle said it’s getting your hands under her clothes. He’s _always_ got girlfriends.”

“Huh,” I answered as I noticed the outline of a bicycle in the clouds. 

“Touchin’ like that’s supposed to feel good,” Daryl said like he was deep in thought on the matter.

“I wouldn’t wanna touch no one like that ‘less I was real good friends,” I said. “Be weird otherwise.”

“Yeah,” Daryl agreed. Then, more excited he said “Hey, I’m your real good friend!”

“You’re my best friend, remember?” I said with a smile.

“So we can try touchin’ under clothes if we wanted but you can’t never tell Merle if you meet him cause he’d say that’s queer and he don’t like that.”

I wasn’t a dummy. I knew what queer meant. And I started to wonder if this meant I was. Cause the only person I wanted to hug and touch like they do in movies was Daryl, on account of how much I loved him. “I won’t tell. Promise,” I said with my pinky finger out for a swear. He took my pinky in his and shook it, then put a hand behind my head and pulled me close and kissed me on the lips. Our teeth clunked together and it made me giggle a little bit.

“What? I ain’t no good?” he asked with a huff.

“No, I just didn’t think you meant like right here and now. Thought we’d like… go back to the tent.”

Daryl grinned at me. “Okay. Race you. Loser has to get naked first!” And then he ran and dived into the water and started swimming. I went after him and we splashed and laughed the whole way back across the lake.

Daryl won. And we walked dripping wet back through the forest. 

“Are you nervous to get naked?” Daryl chidded.

“Nah, I ain’t never nervous around you, Daryl,” I said. I always started saying “ain’t” and cussin’ in the summers with Daryl. In a way, I wanted to be just like him, strong and funny and smart. But I wanted him to have what I had. Good parents and a nice house and never getting hurt. I thought maybe I was in love with him. And I wasn’t scared at all about being all naked together. When we hugged shirtless after racing across the lake, I knew I’d like to touch like that again. I was getting hard in my pants just thinking about it. I knew about stuff. I did the thing that boys did when they were alone. And I wondered if Daryl would do that thing to me when I was naked.

Daryl crawled into the tent first, his boxers and his hair still damp and I zipped the door back up behind me as I followed. 

“Okay. Take ‘em off,” he said cheerfully.

I did without a word and I was hard and big. I watched him while he just stared at it. “Your turn,” I finally said and he wiggled out of his with a blush. He was hard too and his was a little bit bigger than mine. “Now what?” I asked.

He shrugged. “Lay down and kiss like on TV?”

I laid down and he leaned over me and started kissing me again. His kisses were soft and timid and he ran his fingers through the wisps of curl at the base of my neck. We bumped noses a few times as we tried to work out the right angle. His bare body was flush against mine and it felt so amazing. My skin tingled like twinkling Christmas lights and my boner felt like it was going to go off without even laying a hand on myself.

“You know how to jerk off?” he asked me between kisses. 

“Course, I ain’t stupid,” I answered defensively. He stopped kissing me and just looked me in the eyes. No one ever looked at me like he did. Like I was everything. And he’d been looking at me like that for years.

He reached his hand out and rested it on my dick and I groaned and thrust my hips up reflexively. “I like looking at you, Rick,” he said. He always said my name a certain way. Like it was a prayer or something. He moved his hand on me and I instantly felt myself pulsing out a mess onto my belly and heard myself whimper as I came. I felt dizzy. I wanted to cuddle up with him and sleep the rest of the day in his arms. But I also wanted to hear him whimpering like I did. 

He wiped his hand unceremoniously on the sleeping bag with a proud grin on his face and I sat up at the same time he laid down, keeping his eyes on mine the whole time. “I like looking at you too, Daryl. And kissing and touching, too. And everythang,” I said. I let my eyes travel from his eyes down past his sun-browned chest to his boner. I wrapped my hand around it and it was sooo warm it was burning hot in my grasp. I started to move it like I do when I'm doing it to myself and I watched as his face contorted like he was almost in pain, his eyebrows knitting together, biting his lip and he came nearly as fast as me with a husky groan. His voice was starting to change. I’d noticed it earlier and really noticed in that low rumble as he bucked up into my hand.

I wiped my hand off on the sleeping bag, too, and laid back down next to him. “We should do that more,” I finally said.

And we did. That summer we spent more time in the tent kissing and touching and getting each other off than we did swimming or fishing. We did it almost every single day. We went from using each other’s hands to using each other’s mouths, to just grinding up against one another. We talked about how real ‘everything-sex’ was supposed to work but decided maybe we would try that next summer because both of us were kinda chicken.

The worst day of my childhood was the final day of summer camp that year. I cried in Daryl’s arms and he hugged me and kissed into my messy curls. “It’s okay. I’ll be here next year. Ain’t goin’ nowhere,” he said, as he comforted me.

“I’m gonna think about you every night,” I told him with a pout. 

“Same here, Rick,” he said, and my heart fluttered at the sound of my name on his tongue. 

“I love you, okay? You’re my best... everythang.”

“Same here,” he said with gentle smile. “You better get goin’ ‘fore those counselors notice you ain’t in line for the bus.”

“‘Kay,” I answered. “See if you can move in with Merle this year, okay?” I asked. I didn’t want to think of him alone in that trailer with his mean Pa.

“I will. Promise,” and he held out his pinky for a swear. I grabbed it with mine and pulled him close to kiss him goodbye one last time. We’d gotten really good at kissing. No more bumping noses or clanking teeth. Just soft, fluid movements and the taste of him, outdoors and campfire and comfort. When we parted I waved and walked away looking back a dozen times as he watched me.

That winter my parents divorced. And with all the changes and shuttling me back and forth between each other, they decided I didn’t need summer camp no more. I threw a rather large fit and they had me back at the shrinking doctors again. I begged and pleaded and offered to use my allowance to pay for camp but things were different and that was that.

I thought about Daryl all through High School. When I got my license, my first drive was to camp, driving around the roads until I found the one that looked familiar and pulled up in front of the trailer that I’d been to only once before. I ran to the door and knocked excitedly and a woman who looked like she’d just woken up even though it was 4 p.m. opened the door.

“Is Daryl here?” I asked, sounding like I was eight again.

“Daryl? No, ain’t no Daryl lives here,” she said as she scratched at an intimate place and I tried to keep my eyes off it.

“Oh. He… he used to live here a few years ago. Do you know where he might have moved?”

She grinned at me, missing a few teeth. “Well, shit, hon. We ain’t got no tea parties ‘round here to socialize at an’ keep in touch. ‘F he was your age he’s probly in jail by now.”

I shook my head. “No. He wouldn’t be in jail, he-” but she shut the door. I drove through the neighborhood a lot more that first year I could drive but never saw him. Finally, I relented to some pressure from Shane and asked out this girl, Lori, that we’d known since middle school. I knew she always had a crush on me. She was my homecoming date Junior year. And then that prom. Then the same for Senior year. We were good friends. She kissed me on our first date but it wasn’t anything like Daryl. It was okay. We had sex the first time after prom Senior year. It was fumbly and awkward but I came. I couldn’t really tell if she did and I didn’t ask. I wasn’t as comfortable about that kind of openness with her as I had been with Daryl. 

I told her about him. No, not the kissing and making out all summer. But that he was my best friend for years and then I never saw him again. I told her about his Pa and how his Momma died when he was so young. How he taught me to fish and to swim and how funny he was. 

The night before I proposed to Lori, I drove back over to Daryl’s old neighborhood and prayed that I’d find him. He wasn’t there. And my parents had been pushing me about settling down with Lori and Lori had been dropping hints and what else was there to do? I had graduated from the Police Academy and Lori talked about wanting kids and I did want to have a kid. So I bought a ring and I did it. She said yes.

Two years later my son was born. I pitched the name Daryl hard, but Lori insisted it was too redneck. But I did manage to win it for the middle name. So Carl Daryl Grimes became my whole world. Turns out I was meant to be a father. I was really good at it. I loved teaching Carl as he grew and showing him new things and watching him learn. It was a good enough life. And then Lori died. It was sudden. A car accident. And all I could think of as I grieved was how badly I wanted Daryl to console me. He had a way of doing that, of holding me and talking soft, that made me feel whole and better and even though it had been almost 25 years, I still ached for his comfort. 

Suddenly I was a single father and Carl, who was already the center of my life, truly did become everything. He was only ten. He had started reminding me of Daryl and I. He was at that same innocent age from when we met and he liked the same things. Fishing, swimming, playing with army guys in the dirt. It made me think of Daryl again even more. Daryl had just been a kid when his mother died. He’d probably know what Carl was going through. He could probably tell me what to do and say to him. What was right and what was wrong. God, I missed Daryl so much. I wished Carl could have known him.

When I woke from my coma, Carl was my first thought. Who had been taking care of him? How long had I been unconscious? There were dead flowers by my bedside, I was sweating from the Georgia heat and there wasn’t a peep of noise from the hallway. I’d woken up to the end of the world and my son was somewhere without me. I had to find him. I had to find Carl.


	2. Found

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The boys are all grown up and the apocalypse is upon them. They haven't seen one another in twenty-five years. Will they be able to fall back into place with each other after all this time and under these extraordinary circumstances?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Diligently beta'd by my pal Stylepoints!

On the roof in Atlanta I didn't even let it cross my mind. It was Georgia. Tons of guys were named Merle. I'd asked once when I'd arrested someone named Merle shortly after I started working on the force if they had a brother named Daryl but all I got from the question was spit in the face and cussed at. And with all the chaos and shock of my few days waking into the apocalypse, I guess I was trying to stay focused on Carl.

I was in a vehicle headed back to the camp these people came from. I’d found Shane's hat at my house and had hopes that he had gotten my son when the shit hit the fan. Shane would follow orders and if folks were told Fort Benning, I was sure that's where he would be.

I was struggling to focus though, because no matter how out of control this Merle was, we left him… _I_ left him, handcuffed to a roof in a city full of walkers. How was I going to live with that? It was a death sentence if I didn’t go back for him.

Morales must have sensed my inner struggle. “Hey, man. No one's really gonna be that upset Merle isn't coming back.”

I looked at him with doubt and with heavy regret nonetheless. 

“Well, maybe his brother,” the man added.

Somewhere in the back of my head was an inner argument. “Ask his brother's name” versus “don't get your hopes up”. I'd be lucky enough to find Carl. I can't expect that I'd find someone in this world that I hadn't been able to find for over twenty-five years in the old one.

As the car slowed to a group of vehicles parked near a camp, I took a deep breath for introductions. I would stay the night. Then I would either try to convince them to come with me to Fort Benning, or I would take off again on my own. Morales got out and I heard children calling him Daddy and wrapping their arms around him and I choked back a tear. Andrea embraced a sister that looked every bit a younger version of herself. 

I put on my hat and looked around at the faces and my heart stopped in my chest. Off to the side, leaning against a camper, was Shane. Of all people it was Shane. My jaw dropped and I stumbled backwards just a bit at the surprise. I could see the shock on his face as well when he saw me, rubbing his eyes in disbelief. 

“Dad?” A voice croaked out and my gaze dropped to the kid Shane had been talking to. Carl. My Carl alive and safe and right there in front of me.

“Carl?” I croaked, tears already streaming down my face. 

“Dad!!!” He ran towards me and I fell to my knees in the dirt to wrap my hands around him, to feel him there, solid, safe, not a dream. I looked up at Shane who smiling at us and once I could bear to take my arms away from my boy, I stood and hugged Shane, both of us laughing tears. “Thank you, brother,” I said. “Thank you for taking care of him.”

Shane waved it off. Of course he would look out for my family. He'd been doing it since Lori died. “How?” he asked as he motioned at me, in confusion.

I shrugged. “Not my time, I guess.” Once the reunions were done, Morales explained to the group what happened with Merle. Shane rubbed at the back of his head. 

“That's gonna be a problem,” he said.

“I know. He has a brother. Where is he, I'll tell him,” I offered.

With all the emotions from finding my son, I still hadn't considered the possibility of a Merle with a younger brother. Shane shook his head, “Better I do it. Merle's brother can be a little explosive and he ain't gonna take this well.” Shane walked into the woods, apparently to look for this explosive little brother.

I wrapped my arms back around Carl for another hug and then let him show me around their camp, telling me all about how they’d been surviving. I just couldn’t believe it. I found my son. My boy. In this crumbling world- what were the odds? Some things are just meant to be, I guessed. Some people just aren’t meant to be apart. Carl needed me and I needed him.

I was standing by the tent Carl and Shane had been sleeping in when I heard the burst of noise.

“Now wait a minute, Daryl. I told you it was an accident. They dropped the key, they was gonna...”

“Fuck you, asshole! Don't matter if it's an accident. He's still up there!”

I froze. Daryl? Merle and _Daryl_? It couldn’t be.

He burst out of the woods in a fury, like a dark storm. “Where all y’all leave him? Huh?” He walked right past me without even taking notice. But my eyes locked onto him. It was him. It was Daryl. I found him. He had the same posture, the same ragged, choppy hair, the same walk. I watched as he rubbed a tear out of his eye with the back of his hand. “Just tell me where he is so’s I can go get him,” he shouted, when T-dog started to explain how he tried to go back.

I patted Carl on the shoulder and walked towards my old friend. “Daryl,” I said softly and he swung around to look at me. 

“Who the hell are you?” he snapped but then his eyes recognized mine. I could see them flicker the moment he remembered me, remembered us. His shoulders had filled out but his eyes were that same color. The color of the summer sky reflecting in our lake.

“Rick Grimes,” I answered softly trying to suppress my grin. I looked around to everyone hesitantly. He might not want to publicly acknowledge what we had. He paced back and forth like a caged animal as he looked me up and down with a mixture of excitement and worry in the lines of his face. It was selfish of me to think, but I hated that the sweetness of our reunion was soured with fear for Merle’s life.

“Daryl,” I said again. “I… I didn't know-”

“My dad will help you go save him, won't you, dad?” Carl said. He was young enough that he still looked at me like a hero, and I was glad for it because I would need his permission. Because yes, I needed to go make it right. Especially now that this was Daryl’s brother Merle. The mythical Merle I’d grown up to stories about. The fact that he protected my best friend made him instantly important to me no matter how much of an asshole he may have turned out to be. I remember thinking as a kid how badly I wanted to meet him, and despite my knowledge that he’d used drugs and spent time in jail, I’d pictured him like Superman- cape and all. That was not the man I met on the roof. But it was still Merle. And I would go back after him...with my best friend.

Daryl looked to Carl and back to me, putting some of my story together. “It's almost dark,” I said. “We’ll go first thing in the morning.”

“I need to go now. What if he don't last the night?” Daryl snapped, trying to maintain his annoyance and continuing to act as if I were a stranger. 

“Won't be able to get him if we die before we get there.” I reasoned. “T-dog chained the door. He’ll be okay.”

Daryl looked around again at all the eyes on him, lingered on Carl again, then back on me.

“Fine,” he said, defeated and he turned and walked back into the woods. I looked at Shane and nodded my intentions to follow him alone. He'd only gone a few hundred feet where he squatted down to get back to work on a deer.

I knelt beside him but he wouldn't meet my eyes. I didn't know what to say. I didn't want to say anything, really. I wanted to grab him up in my arms and hold him, kiss him, tell him how much I loved him, how much I still love him. But his body language was tense and he was still brooding with anger.

“Yah never came back,” he finally said and it ripped my heart into a thousand pieces. He waited for me. He waited.

“I… I wanted to, Daryl. I tried to. My parents got divorced and I had to move with my mom and … I begged. I begged them. I've never stopped thinking of you,” I said, my voice low and close. 

I reached out to put a hand on his knee but he flinched away from me then looked at my ring finger. I'd still been wearing Lori’s band. “Got yourself a wife. A kid.” He looked me up and down in my King’s County Sheriff's uniform. “Cop, too, just like ya said” he laughed smugly, shaking his head. He continued keeping most of his focus on the deer.

“What did you end up doing?” I asked, trying for casual with him since he didn’t seem ready yet to talk on an emotional level. He looked up and glared at me. 

“I ain’t nothin’, Rick. Just like I always been.” He focused back on the job in front of him, clearly a skilled hunter now.

“You were never nothing, Daryl. You were everythang. I looked for you when I got my license but you'd moved. Looked for you a million times. The night before I proposed to Lori...I… ” I couldn’t even figure out how to explain the desperation in my search. 

“Well, guess you're over it now, huh?” he grumbled, cutting aggressively into the deer.

“I never stopped thinking about you after I got married. My son… he’s about the same age we were,” I laughed. “Makes me remember those years. Swimming in our lake, playing with our army guys, camping out and going fishing.” I paused. “Carl likes to do all those things now.”

He stopped and looked up to me and wiped at his brow with a forearm. He tried to keep his expression passive but I knew him. I still knew him and his eyes softened. “Looks just like you did. Can't believe I didn't make the connection.”

“His middle name is Daryl,” I said, while I had his attention. I wanted him to see in my eyes how important he’s always been to me. But maybe it was too much emotion and sincerity for him to deal with quite yet. Something, maybe, he wasn’t used to anymore, because he looked away and focused on an acorn that fell from a nearby tree.

“What happened, Daryl? Where did you disappear to? I must have drove through that old trailer park a thousand times over the years.”

He raised a brow up at me and I knew instantly it was the wrong question. He tensed and his voice started to steadily raise. “My Pa kicked over from alcohol poisoning and I ended up living with Merle. You know...My _brother_ Merle- the one you left for dead.” His face contorted in hurt and it was so similar to the way he would scrunch up his face when we would fool around, the moment before he would explode, that chills ran down my spine. But this wasn’t that. This was anger and disappointment. “You know how much he means to me! YOU KNOW!” he shouted, throwing the gut sack from the deer at me. “And you left him for dead,” Daryl’s voice shook and he started to whimper with the effort of holding back full-fledged sobs. I had never seen him cry in all our years as children. I would get Merle back. I had to.

“I didn’t know who he was. I never would have… We’ll get him. The door is barred. I swear to you.”

Daryl finally fell from his squat and sat down Indian style next to me, crestfallen, head in his hands. I felt like we were kids again, alone in the quiet woods sitting in the dirt. I put a hand on his knee. His shoulders were slumped like he was giving up his anger.

“I can’t believe I found you,” I said softly. “There’s a reason for that. We can survive this. All this. Together. You, me, Carl and Merle.”

“I ain’t the same damn dumb kid no more, Rick,” he said, eyes on the deer in front of him.

“I know who you are. You’re still you and… And I…” I wasn’t even sure what I wanted to say or how to say it.

“You ever get married or anything?” I asked trying to find something to ease us back into our comfortable conversations. I knew we’d be able to fall back in place. We always did. And we would this time too, twenty-five years wasn’t shit for what we had.

He scowled at me. “No, officer. I didn't.”

I looked him in the eyes wishing he'd understand how much he's been part of my heart all this time.

“Daryl,” I said softly with a laugh. “I want to hug you so fucking bad. Please.” 

He narrowed his eyes again. “Why?”

“Because I love you,” I whispered. “I _never_ stopped.”

I could tell by the way he set his jaw and played with the sole of his boot that he was desperately trying to hold back more tears.

“We’ll go back. First thing at dawn. You and me. He’ll be fine.”

“You can't leave your boy here alone. Don't be stupid. Yah just found him,” Daryl said firmly.

I cocked my head and ducked it to try and meet his eyes again. “You heard him, Daryl. He's the one who told me to go. And he doesn't even know who you are to me.”

Daryl looked at me, one eye suspicious and the other desperate to love me back again. 

“Who am I?” he croaked out.

I stood and reached down for him and finally he took my hand. I helped him up and hugged him tight and I felt his familiar arms gentle around me again. Stronger, more defined muscles for sure, but it was Daryl. He smelled of forest and fire and comfort and I breathed the scent of him in deep. I put a hand against the back of his head, fingers combing through that too-long hair. I kissed his cheek and put my forehead against his.

“Ain’t never been with no one else but you. Ain’t never loved no one else, Rick,” he whispered, the ghost of his words tickling my lips. The sound of my name in his voice reminding me of childhood, the same way the taste of s’mores brings back that memory. I leaned in and pressed a kiss to his mouth. A mouth I’d tasted every day for an entire summer. A mouth I’d been dreaming of for years. He parted his lips for me like he used to and as I grew more and more desperate to devour him whole, his body responded with just as much urgency. He backed me up against a nearby tree and he whimpered as he kissed me, mouths open, gasping, passion culminating between us from every minute of those lost twenty-five years. 

My hands slid from his neck along his strong arms and down his slim waist and I slipped fingers under the waistline of his jeans. “Rick,” he whispered between kisses and gasps. He moved his hands to mine and held them. 

“Daryl,” I whispered back, my mind a swirl of sensations, emotions and memories. 

He brought his hands up to my face and pulled back a bit, looking me in the eyes. It seemed like a thousand worries were on his mind and he couldn't figure out which one to focus on.

“Not the right time, Rick. You just found your boy. Go be with him. I gotta finish this up.” He started to turn back to his kill, but hesitated and came back for a quick kiss, then just as quickly was back on his knees at work on butchering the deer.

I walked back to camp in a bit of a daze and sat on a log by Carl. “Did you explain that you’ll save Merle?” he asked me.

I nodded. “Yeah, I did. You’re really brave to let me go back, Carl. You know that?”

“Merle's not a real bad guy, dad,” Carl explained. “‘Member like you always said? Some bad guys just had bad circumstances and those guys just need help. And then there are the real bad guys. Merle ain't bad. Carol told me she thinks those Dixon’s had a mean dad.”

I nodded. “Yeah, they did.”

“I can come help you,” he offered, sitting up straighter. “I’m not afraid.” I was so proud of my son. He listens. He has heart. I wanted Daryl to get to know him better and I wanted Carl to get to know Daryl. It was suddenly incredibly important to me.

“Need someone back at camp to protect everyone here, buddy,” I said and he rolled his eyes, but still smiled. Carl introduced me again to all the other survivors and we talked with some of them for a while and got to know each other. When his attention was back on a conversation with Sophia, I stood and walked over to Shane. “We’ll leave at daybreak,” I started and he immediately began shaking his head.

“Rick. It ain't a good idea, brother. These things are everywhere and they’re dangerous and-”

“I know. I been through it. But you know me. I can't leave this.”

“You'd risk your son for some unknown, backwoods redneck?”

I held Shane's stare. We butted heads a lot. Always have. That was one of the ways Daryl was so different when we were kids. I understood Shane’s concerns. Family first. I get it. It's _my_ fucking family, of course I get it. But shit got out of hand back in the city. No man deserved to be left how we left Merle. And especially not this man.

“Shane,” I tried to reason, “I'm not playing God with a man’s life. A man who has a brother and who-”

“Neither of them boys is worth dyin’ for,” Shane interrupted.

I don't even remember throwing my punch. Don’t remember getting punched back either. The next thing I knew, Daryl’s hands were around my waist pulling me away and Carl was calling for me.

“What the hell is going on, man,” T-dog asked, as he pulled Shane away. 

Shane had a bloody lip and I was fairly certain I was gonna be sporting a black eye by dawn. 

“Just a fundamental disagreement,” I said, shaking Daryl off me. “We’re fine.”

“You ain’t back by nightfall, we move on. Can’t keep sitting out in the open here,” Shane said.

“Now, now, wait a minute,” Dale said, trying to play peacemaker. It was already growing dark and I looked around to check on Carl in the dimming daylight.

“It’s okay,” Daryl interrupted. “We’ll be back before nightfall tomorrow. With or without him.” I looked at him and nodded in silent agreement. I would go back to Atlanta for him at dawn and he would return to camp for me by dusk. 

“I’ll take first watch,” Dale offered. “Shane, why don’t you join me?” 

Shane looked at me then to Daryl and back. I had never told Shane about camp as a child. Never told him about Daryl. Daryl was mine and I didn’t want to share him like that. He knew nothing of my instant dedication to this man. But he knew me enough to know that I had to do the right thing. “I’ll keep an eye on Carl. Like I have been,” he said, part venom and part sincerity and then walked off with Dale towards the RV. We’d known each other for thirty years. It wasn’t our first fight. Hell, it wasn’t even our first fist fight. 

“Thank you,” I answered. When I turned back, Daryl was already climbing into a small pup tent on the far edge of the camp. I walked to the one Shane and Carl used and crawled in with my son. We talked a while. About how it all started. How Shane had been staying at the house with Carl since the accident. How they narrowly escaped the neighborhood when the radio and TV started ordering folks to head towards Fort Benning. He talked about the first walkers he saw and the first ones he saw killed. 

When he was all talked out and ready to find sleep, I changed the conversation to baseball. Talked about when he played little league and when I took him to a Brave’s game the first time. I wanted him to fall asleep to the thoughts of fresh cut grass and the cheer of a crowd, not thoughts of death and decay. By the time he was asleep, the rest of the camp was completely silent. I could tell by the lack of light against the canvas tent that the fire had died out. 

I tried to sleep. I knew I’d need it but I couldn’t will it on myself. Daryl was here. And for some reason I was overwhelmed with the need to put my eyes on him again to make sure it was real. I crawled out of our tent and zipped it up as I stood, looking around the camp and seeing only Shane and Dale deep in conversation, sitting in lawn chairs atop the RV up on the road. I walked to a nearby tree and took a piss then wandered over to Daryl’s tent. I quietly stood there for a while, trying to determine if he was awake.

“I know you’re out there, Rick. You ain’t never been that quiet in the woods,” he whispered. 

I grinned and kicked at the dirt. “Can I come in?” I asked softly.

I heard him move and the sound of the tent flap unzipping. I crawled in and zipped up behind me, flashing back to that moment so long ago. Both of us dripping wet with lake water and stripping naked for the first time without any complication. It was complicated now. Daryl had a lot more years of his dark life heavy on his shoulders. His brother was in danger… and because of me. I had a son. So much complication.

But sitting in a tent with my best friend, Daryl, was so calming it was as if I’d set foot in a time machine. It was just me and him and everything complicated faded away.

“Dead walking. Didn’t see that coming,” I said and huffed out a laugh as he laid down with his arms behind his head. I laid in the same position next to him, much the way we used to lay there when we’d spend all night talking about superheroes and science class.

“Who do you think would have the best chance against ‘em?” Daryl asked. “Spiderman or Ironman?”

I looked over at him with a smile so wide it hurt. We were falling back into place like I knew we would. After some debate and weighing lots of pros and cons, we decided on Ironman. Daryl told me all about how he and Merle escaped their house when the dead really started overtaking things. Asked me all about what the police academy was like. Then he turned and leaned up on one arm like he used to when he was asking something serious. “What was it like being with a woman? Did you like it? Is that… is that what you like now?”

I blushed for some reason and I turned and leaned up on one arm like he was. “It was… different. I mean… I liked her. I loved her even. She gave me Carl. And… honest to God, I’d just been pinin’ for you that whole time, so I just settled down with her so I wouldn’t have to look for anyone else. Didn’t want no one else. What I really wanted was lost.”

He bit at a nail. “His middle name really Daryl?” 

I smiled. “Yup. Tried to make it the first name but she outranked me since she had to lug him around for nine months.”

He laid back down and looked up at the tent. “I… I never liked girls. And… just never felt,” he paused as he tried to find the way he wanted to word things. “Never felt like anyone I met was worth the risk of findin’ out if they was interested back.”

I stayed propped up on an elbow and watched him. “Spent my whole life trying to find you again. You ever try to look for me?”

He looked over at me and met my eyes. “Nah. Thought you was embarrassed ‘bout all that shit we did and bailed.”

“Oh, Jesus, Daryl! No!,” I gasped. I scooted closer to him and put my arms around him and my head on his chest and held onto him like I used to when we were kids. “I’m so fucking sorry you had to feel that. It couldn’t be further from the truth.”

He put a hand on my back and rubbed gently up and down. After a few minutes of quiet comfort he said, “Merle knows.”

I sat up quickly and looked down at him. “Merle knows what?!”

Daryl rolled his eyes. “For fuck’s sake. You. I told him the next summer ‘cause he… ‘cause I… He kept seein’ me fuckin’ cryin’ all the damn time. Got mad at him when he pushed me on it and I just blurted it out. That I was in love with a boy who didn’t love me no more. He tried to convince me it was just a phase but by the end of the conversation I think he knew it wasn’t no one-time thing.” He paused and looked over at me. “‘Bout a month later he was so sick a’ my bellyachin’ he swore up and down that he’d beat the life out of yah if he ever seen yah. So… you might want to stay under the radar ‘bout being this particular Rick.”

The thought of him pining for me like that was agony. And someone like Merle accepting Daryl for being gay? Even more reason to go back for this man. 

Us being together in a quiet tent was so familiar, I didn't even remember my thoughts before I leaned down and kissed him. We were just there, back together, pressed against one another. I let him roll me over and straddle me and I groaned softly at the feel of him hard above me. I missed his skin, the feel of it warm against my own so when he pulled back from kissing and looked down at me, I started unbuttoning his shirt. 

The last bits of hurt melted off him as the heat between us reignited. I was at home in the tangle of our limbs as we ran hands over one another's bodies, mapping out the ways we’ve grown. We kissed long and slow as we felt our way under shirts and stripped off pants.

“You still chicken?” he asked me, his rough hand grazing feather-light over my backside. 

Instead of answering with words, I rolled to my back and wrapped my legs fully around him. His clear blue eyes were dark now and he grinned that cute lopsided grin of his. The one that has no cares. The one that's always been mine. 

“You sure? Cause I got KY in my first aid bag.”

“Good,” I whispered. “Fuck me then.”

What little blue was left outlining his irises seemed to disappear into blackness and he stayed straddling me as he quickly fumbled through a nearby backpack.

“You ever done this before?” he asked softly as he pulled out the tube.

“Nah, man. Only ever been with Lori. Thought about it with you a lot though. And I had the internet,” I whispered with a grin.

He looked at my cock and ducked down to take me in his mouth. “Daryl, God,” I murmured. I groaned at the pleasure from the familiar heat of his mouth and balled my hands into fists as I pawed at the sleeping bag below me.

After a few moments, he pulled off of me and I felt a finger rubbing at my entrance. “Might hurt a little the first time,” he warned.

“I'll be fine.”

“You sure? You cried from a bee sting one time.”

“Fuck you,” I laughed, “I was ten.” Our giggles shifted slowly and effortlessly into passion, a new kind of intensity that we’d been too young to have all those years ago. Now we knew. We knew not to take advantage of our time like there's a neverending supply of it. We knew to treasure moments. 

With his eyes on mine, he slipped in a first finger and I winced at the intrusion.

“Hurt?” he asked softly.

“No. Just different.”

“Do you still-”

“Yes,” I answered. There was something so private, so intimate about what we were doing, allowing someone inside me like this. He slowly moved his finger in and out, his eyes still never leaving mine.

“More,” I whispered after I'd gotten used to the feel of something breaching me open and he careful added a second finger. It was so… taboo. So me and Daryl only. So closing out the rest of the world and just having this moment being all there was in the whole wide world.

“‘M ready,” I whined as I arched into his fingers. I wanted Daryl to fill this emptiness in me so bad. My body tingled with anticipation of the wider stretch that I knew would be coming.

He added some KY to the palm of his hand and readied his cock. “Tell me if you need me to stop, Rick, okay?”

I smiled at the sound of my name in his husky whisper. My name on Daryl's lips, after all this time. It was uncomfortable for a moment when he first entered me but he waited, judging my readiness for him to go deeper by studying my eyes. I gave him a barely perceptible nod and he pushed in deeper. It stretched me wide and burned but it was a good burn. It was a “this means I'm Daryl’s” burn. And I felt like I belonged to him with his body inside of mine.

“What's it feel like?” he whispered, his eyes soft and his brow wrinkled in curiosity. 

“Like you're part of me. Feel full and just… just yours.”

He moved slowly in and out, his mouth slack, eyes rolling back in his head, and his breaths coming quicker. I loved watching him feel me. Our gasps and soft whimpers in the tent were like a soundtrack from an old movie that I knew all the songs to. He wrapped his work-rough hands around my straining cock and the sensation of him deep inside me and stroking me at the same time finally culminated in the point of no return. It was like I had risen to the top of a roller coaster and knew nothing else was going to happen except for the rush of descent and I came hard and fast as I heard him trying to muffle his own groans. I was spent and shaky and I watched his face as he rode out his own orgasm inside me just a moment after mine, his lips forming words that I could read on them but not hear- “Rick, God, Rick… God” as if the words were completely interchangeable. I could feel his cock as it pulsed out inside and he slipped out and rolled over, an arm over his head, deep breaths, shivers.

Once we both had our heart rates back down he looked back at me, leaned up and kissed me gently on the lips. “Don’t let your boy wake in the night w’thout you there. You better get back. I’ll get you at dawn.”

I nodded, still not able to really find words and I quickly and clumsily dressed in the small confines of the tent. As I unzipped the canvas door he said my name again. “Rick?” God, I loved for him to say my name. It stopped me in my tracks every time. 

“Yeah?”

“That’s your Shane out there? From school?”

I nodded.

“You know how you always said I was so much cooler than him?”

“Yeah,” I laughed quietly.

“Well, you were right. I am. But y’know. He’s been here takin’ care of that boy like he was his own. And the world bein’ what it is… might be good for us to all get along.”

I didn’t want to tell him that I had punched Shane in Daryl’s defense and I didn’t. I just nodded and walked out into the cool night air praying to God that Merle was looking up at the same night sky, still alive and waiting for us to rescue him. 

\--------------------------  
I woke suddenly to the sound of whispers and footsteps outside my tent. I listened cautiously to make sure they weren’t the shuffle of dead and it wasn’t. I could tell through the top of the tent that the night sky was starting to lighten and I leaned over and kissed Carl on the forehead, his eyes fluttering open. “I’ll be back by dusk at the latest okay, big guy?”

He rubbed his eyes and nodded. “Okay, Dad. I’m not worried. You always come back.”

As I got out of the tent, I could tell that Daryl had been whispering to Carol at the firepit and he handed me half of a granola bar he’d been working on. 

“Be careful out there,” Carol said with a nod as I ate quickly. “We’ll see you back here later.” She was timid, but confident in our return and I was thankful for all the confidence I could soak up. I looked to Daryl and nodded my head over to one of the SUV’s and he followed me to it, tossed a backpack in and climbed into the passenger side.

“Let’s roll,” he said, focused on the mission ahead. We drove in silence for a while as the day broke into pinks and oranges low in the sky. And finally I couldn’t take the quiet any longer. 

“Last night? I hope that wasn’t a one-time thing,” I said. “I don’t want it to be. I want it to be us again.”

“Rick. I’ll make sure you’re back to your boy by dusk, but if we ain’t got Merle for any reason, I gotta go back after him.” My face fell as he continued. “I love you. But you know he was all I had. You know he took care of me and I ain’t gonna leave ‘im. Not after all he’s done for me.”

I nodded because I had to. “We’ll get him,” I said mimicking the confidence Carol seemed to have earlier. We parked the car close to the building where I knew Merle was. It had taken three or four tries to get into the city without roadblocks of the dead in our way. Once we were on foot and moving through a side street, it was clear we were a team. We moved together flawlessly, the same way we’d run and play through the woods together as children. We were in tune with one another, Daryl knifing a walker that had gotten a little too close to me and then communicating with just eyes and nods where to go next to find an entrance that wasn’t blocked. 

We made it inside without too much bloodshed and we climbed up twenty-seven long flights of stairs, Daryl pulling out the bolt cutters as we got to the top. I drew my weapon in case there were any surprises on the other side and Daryl cut the chains. He flew threw the door ahead of me. “Merle!”

I followed him around the roof to the spot we left him… and there he was. Merle sat there, next to a knocked over tool box, desperately trying to cut through the handcuffs with a dull sawblade. “Key’s in that drain,” he said as he saw his brother. “Knew you’d come get me, Daryl. That fuckin’ sack of shit cop is gonna-” he stopped in mid sentence as his eyes landed on me. 

Daryl unlocked the cuffs and Merle jumped to his feet and came after me. I lowered my weapon. I deserved a punch at least and I’d take what was due. “I’ll fucking kill you, you mother fucking, pig, piece of shit, asshole-”

“Merle!” Daryl yelled putting arms around his brother and trying to tug him off me. “Leave ‘im alone, goddamnit. He came back for yah, didn’t he? Risked his life. Left his boy he just found to come back for your ignorant ass.” 

Merle pushed Daryl off him, still worked up in the fury he’d stirred himself up into with a whole night alone. “What you his bitch now? Why you so…” Merle’s voice trailed off. He looked me up and down and took notice to the protective stance that Daryl had in front of me. “Officer Friendly… you say your name was Rick yesterday?”

“Yes. I’m Rick,” I said and reached out a hand. 

“This _that_ Rick?” Merle asked Daryl, not accepting my offer of a handshake. 

“Merle, it’s not what you think. He didn’t-”

“I’ll fucking stomp your ass you fucking dirtbag-” Merle hollered and he pushed passed Daryl and landed a blow to the same eye that took a hit from Shane the day before. I was definitely gonna have a black eye after that one. I saw stars as I dropped to the ground.

“Merle!” Daryl yelled again. “He… his parents got divorced and couldn’t send him to camp no more. Wasn’t his fault.”

“So what?” Merle scoffed. “He still tossed you aside. Led yah along then told yah yah ain’t nothin’ no more.”

I cocked my head. “I never did that. I just couldn’t get back to camp. I was all tears and snot and pledging my undying love to him the last time I saw him.”

Merle finally stopped struggling against Daryl’s hold. “Wait a minute. You mean he didn’t actually _TELL_ you he didn’t love you no more? He just stopped showin’ up to camp?” Merle’s attention was now completely off me and back on his baby brother. 

“Well, yeah,” Daryl said as if he thought that was what he’d tried to convey all them years ago.

“You dumb fuck,” Merle said with a shove at Daryl’s chest. “‘f yah woulda told me he just didn’t show back up , I woulda told you ain’t no thirteen-year-old kid in control ‘bout whether he goes to camp or not.”

Daryl just blinked at Merle as his older brother shook his head. “God DAMN, guess you are one a’ them gays for sure with all that melodrama. Christ, you acted like he broke your heart just to laugh at yah over it.” Merle looked back at me and reached down a hand. “What a fuckin’ drama queen,” he said to me, cockin’ his head in Daryl’s direction. 

Merle looked me up and down. “That your boy then? Back at camp. Little brown-haired one with the freckles that the other cops’ been takin’ care of?”

I nodded and smiled. “Yeah, Carl. He’s-”

“You married, then?” he interrupted. 

“She died about a year ago.”

Daryl started picking up all the tools to bring them back to camp as Merle massaged at his wrist now that it was finally uncuffed. “The kid told me his middle name was Daryl. That a coincidence?”

“No,” I said. “It was for your brother. I never stopped looking for Daryl and I never stopped loving him.”

“Talkin’ mushy ‘bout me’s probly gonna get yah hurt worse than breakin’ my heart,” Daryl warned.

“I’m willing to risk it,” I answered as I helped him load up the toolkit.

“Whatever,” Merle groaned. “Let’s get goin’ then. No holdin’ hands or shit on the way home. Ain’t had shit to eat since yesterday but I’m pretty sure your little love-fest would still make me puke.” Merle walked with purpose to the door and started down the stairs ahead of us.

I looked at Daryl and smiled. “I always pictured him with a cape,” I said. 

“Nah. No cape. But his superpower is that he can make it near impossible for people to think he's anything other than an asshole.”

We climbed down the stairs, Merle quite a bit ahead of us singing “It’s Raining Men” obviously for that asshole disguise.

“Hey, y’know, you were _his_ hero today,” I pointed out. “Scaling tall buildings in a single bound… Well, I mean huffing it up twenty seven flights of stairs but you get my point.” Daryl grinned and he looked happy. Happy like childhood happy. Like when his nights were bad but he had me on summer days kind of happy.

We made it back to camp by dusk, Daryl’s brother alive and well and my son still safe.   
It may have taken the end of the world, but I found what I’d lost so long ago. And I looked forward to living each day of this new world. Guess some things were just meant to be. And me and Daryl… we were one of those things.

When I was young, life was much easier. Camping and fishing and laughing. Nothing but going from one day to the next. And with the world like it was, we’d now be doing pretty much the same. Going from one day to the next. Just living. Doing what needs to be done and taking the smiles and triumphs where we could get them.

I felt like I'd be able to be like Daryl now. Like I always wanted to be. Strong in the face of constant adversity. Happy when I could get those kind of moments. Dedicated to surviving however I had to. And we would keep on surviving and moving forward together. The four of us and an extended family we would continue to pick up along the way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Since we had none of our boys onscreen for tonight's episode, Stylepoints was kind enough to stay up and do the final round of beta so I could post. Hope you all enjoy how this turned out.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed this bit of innocence and sweetness. Part Two will be the boys reuniting in the apocalypse!


End file.
